Mother-Guilt

by Leslie Klipsch

It happened when my son was three months old. He fell off the bed. It was early in the morning and I was an exhausted new mother. My eyes were closed and I heard a thump. (Could I have fallen back to sleep?) I closed my eyes and the baby rolled off onto the hardwood floor. At three months old Oliver measured 27" long. Our antique, cast iron bed stands four feet high.

When people tried to console me, I retorted with the fact that a baby falling from that bed would be like me tumbling from a window two stories up. Terrifying. Something would surely break. And all the while, I was right next to him. A good mother, I told myself, would have never closed her eyes and allowed her infant son to take such a plunge.

He cried for a few minutes. I cried for days. My first introduction to Mother-Guilt.

Mother-Guilt and I have become well acquainted over the first two years of my mothering career. She rears her accusing head quite often, actually. When my son was six months, I fell while walking with him tucked into the Baby Bjourn. Mother-Guilt followed me for days, asking why I was such a klutz. And the questions over the chocolate milk that I let him drink too often! "What about his teeth? What about the childhood obesity epidemic plaguing this nation? Did you think of that?" she mocks. Just the other day she showed up uninvited and reproachful after his two-year-old body plunged headfirst off the cement stoop in front of our apartment. "You were chatting with the neighbor, shouldn't you have been watching your son?"

The morning Oliver soared over the side of the bed I took him to the doctor. I went early and tried to calm down with a cup of coffee at the shop across the street from the pediatrician's office. Oliver slept peacefully in his stroller (Should he be sleeping? Might he have a concussion?) as I sat in a daze at a small table. A kind looking, white-haired woman approached and asked, "Are you okay, dear?" She reminded me of my great-grandmother with her soft voice and concerned eyes. I looked up and asked her hopefully, "Do you have children?"

"Why, yes. I have five." I felt reassured. Surely there had been accidents in her past.

I swallowed hard and the tears flowed again. "Did you ever let any of them fall from your bed?"

"Oh no, dear. I would never have done anything like that."

Mother-guilt.

As mothers, we second guess ourselves constantly and find it hard to fight the feeling of inadequacy. Bookstore shelves are bursting with advice, boasting the "right" way to raise your child. The media bombards us with horror stories about what can go wrong. And we witness other mothers enjoying good moments, appearing to have it all together -- hair dry and stylish, kids standing in a straight, quiet line at the coffee shop, the whole family wearing faces and clothing free of peanut butter or pasta sauce. We are fairly positive that none of her children were ever dropped as infants. Surely she has never slammed a toddler's hand in the car door.

I understand that I am not alone in my angst. Ask any mother and she will share a story. A good friend was dropped and hospitalized as an infant, yet he is a fully functioning adult today. My mother-in-law watched in horror as my husband, then four months old, plummeted down the cellar stairs. I listen to these stories and feel vaguely comforted, crossing my fingers that the guilt-ridden feelings must fade with time.

Cynthia Flynn, Certified Nurse Midwife and PhD, is the expert midwife on Pregnancy.org. She fields such questions from women who struggle with this sort of guilt and has come to believe that it is a set-up. "Women have been taught to fear an infinite number of hazards, but have also been taught to feel guilty for doing anything less than perfection...our culture sets women up to fail at a job everyone agrees is one of the most important jobs there is." Her advice: "There is no way for a human to be perfect, so of course mistakes will be made. Celebrating the successes we do have each day is one way to escape being consumed by guilt and fear."